Men don’t buy novels anymore. They’ve pretty much stopped buying magazines and they don’t go to the cinema in as big numbers as they used to. What do they do? The answer is that nobody knows. Advertisers don’t know. TV programmers don’t know. Publishers certainly don’t know. Probably they’re playing Halo online, watching Louis CK videos on YouTube and googling for free pornography, but we can’t be certain.In my local Borders they have a "Guy Lit." section which contains thrillers by ex SAS men, alternative histories where the Nazis win the war and Nick Hornby novels...Is there a middle ground between the SS jackboot and the lime green Converse high top? Yes, I think so. Here’s my list of 10 novels for men who don’t normally like to read novels. Each one has the advantage of giving you a passport into a genre or an author that will keep you going for a while.
10. The Big Sleep - Raymond Chandler. It’s raining in Bay City (Santa Monica) and the slick streets are thick with ironic private eyes - the most poetic and interesting of them is a guy called Philip Marlowe.
9. Use of Weapons - Iain Banks. A crazy, violent space opera set in Banks’s Culture universe. A dude called Zakalwe is a major league bad ass with a power suit and a big gun. Havoc ensues pretty much all the time. At one point he gets his head chopped off by a bunch of insane cannibals. He survives.
8. In Dubious Battle - John Steinbeck. Commie agents in 30's California get the living shite knocked out of them as they lay the groundwork for revolution. This is a book to make Glenn Beck keek his whips and cry into his pillow. Nobody reads this anymore. Shame because its awesome.
8. A Farewell To Arms - Ernest Hemingway. A romantic (but in a manly Hemingwayesque way) American ambulance driver falls in love with war and then a nurse. He falls out of love with the former when he quickly sees how bloody horrible WWI actually is. All the way through you're thinking, this isn't going to end well...Unlike For Whom The Bell Tolls no one gets called "my little rabbit".
7. The Code of the Woosters - PG Wodehouse. Zen master Jeeves keeps his upper lip intact even in the most trying of circumstances. You think Snoop Dogg’s laid back? Jeeves would out limbo that mother any day of the week were he so vulgar as to engage in any kind of stick based contest.
6. The Ipcress File - Len Deighton. Harry Palmer is a spy, a gourmand, he counts his coppers, lives in a flat, flies to America and watches an H bomb test (they couldnt afford to put that bit in the movie).
5. The Cold Six Thousand - James Ellroy. It’s basically the Wizard of Oz retold with J Edgar Hoover as the Wicked Witch of the East and with Dorothy blowing her brains out at the end.
4. Her Last Call To Louis MacNeice - Ken Bruen. You know those Irish tourist board ads featuring sandy beaches, jolly times in pubs, pints of Guinness with shamrocks on them? Well Ken Bruen doesn’t write about any of that bollocks. He writes about smart crooks who know that there are many many uses for a good ten pound hammer.
3. Moby Dick - They’ve taken a three year passage on board a leaky nineteenth century whaling ship with a mad captain, dangerous harpoonists and the heavy hand of fate hanging over them. Let’s see the Sea Shepherds try their water hoses on these bad boys.
2. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller. Its WW2 through the eyes of Captain Yossarian a Jewish kid from Brooklyn who has become the bombardier on a B17. He has to laugh otherwise he will cry and cry. Ou sont les Snowdens d'antan?
1. Blood Meridian - Cormac McCarthy. Gun battles and horrific slaughter in the old west and Mexico. You'll try and get the wedding party massacre out of your head for the rest of your life. You wont succeed. McCarthy’s masterpiece.
66 comments:
Louis CK rocks.
excellent list Adrian!
Trudy
He's funny isnt it he? Have you ever seen the one about the Post Office?
He was my brother in law's best friend in high school.
Ferenc
Thanks mate.
Thanks for the list.
I note that Catch-22, The Big Sleep and Moby Dick are on both your recent lists of novels. And, that a Wodehouse and a Steinbeck book are on both lists, also.
Any room for John Buchan on this list?
Speedskater
Yeah they're all pretty solid. Moby Dick might try the patience of some people but once you're deep into the music of the prose you're fine.
Peter
Well Greenmantle is a pretty good book, but The 39 Steps is shorter and sharper.
Adrian: I've got a 23-year-old son. He reads very few novels. There's no way, if he was ever convinced to try Moby Dick, that he'd get through it.
I've tried several books on my son, most recently Black Dahlia, but he didn't read that one. I've recommended your books, but he's hasn't tried them, yet. By the way, I'd put Dead I Well May Be on my list of books to get non-reading men to read.
Speedskater
Try the Iain Banks on him.
Adrian,
I had to look up the Louis CK Post Office story. Funny. I liked the Surprise Visit from Mom. He's an incredibly uninhibited comic.
I just ordered Blood Meridian due to your recommendation. Always enjoy Cormac McCarthy. It will be read after Fifty Grand next up. I read Moby Dick as well as the similar Old Man and the Sea years ago and enjoyed them. (Your list is not exclusively for men I hope.) I got my S/O to read DIWMB and he is liking it. He reads the old-fashioned way...with his eyes, not ears.
This obviously isn't aimed at my demographic, so good luck with this noble but perhaps doomed effort.
Personally I'd say,wait until they're doing time in some minimum security prison and slip them some James Lee Burke, and a cast of familiar characters from Irish crime fiction. Oh, yeah, Cormac McCarthy would do too.
Parents aren't
probably the best suppliers, sadly. A highly literate neighborhood drug dealer might work. Or the guy or even gal at the tattoo parlor.
In Santa Cruz, it would probably be best coming from the Bike Church or the Anarchist's Cafe. Or maybe one of the two comic book stores.
I recommended the Buchan because I was thinking adventure stories. It was a nice surprise to see Wodehouse in the list.
I see lots of younger artsy types reading graphic novels, some of which have good stories -- various books by Alan Moore, for instance.
======================
Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://www.detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
Trudy
Blood Meridian is not for the faint of heart. Thats all I'll say.
Seana
You're dead right. In fact its my experience that if a parent recommends a book that is the one book that will never be read. If an older/cooler peer recs a book then its a different story.
Peter
Yeah but graphic novels are an easy get. I assume all young men have read Watchmen and Frank Miller's The Dark Knight. It would be nice if they moved onto to Harvey Pekar after that.
The Code of the Woosters is one of my favs. Jeeves & Wooster have always got me through bad times.
When my work colleague sits down to read his Nuts mag today, i will give him your "10 Novels for Men" as an alternative and see how that goes down. Im thinking it might improve his conversation.
This makes me think of Muhammad Ali's quote again. Maybe we'll find some of these books as good at fifty as we did at twenty but somehow I doubt it. I coudn't imagine trying to get through Moby Dick now, even though it would mean so much more to me (too much, maybe).
I remember when I was in my twenties and John Cougar had a hit song with the lines, "Life goes on long after the thrill of living is gone," and an older guy where I worked at the time said it wasn't right to tell that to kids, "Just starting out," as he said. At the time I thought, no, it's best to have that information so it doesn't have to happen to you. Now I'm not so sure. Of course, now I'm not so sure about anything...
I still have Moby Dick before me, like so much else, although I've started it multiple times.
I think graphic novels are a perfectly legit way to get into reading, Adrian, and if that's all they have time for between playing wargames, fair enough. It's being able to read and knowing your options about it that is all anyone can really give anybody else anyway.
An online game written by a superliterate programmer where you'd have to get all the cool literary references to proceed further might work. At least, some online game about ancient Rome inspired my nephew and his friends to learn a little Latin.
On the topic of graphic novels: The Maus books by Art Speigelman are as good as these books can be. Highly recommended.
As a parent, I've had no luck recommending books to my older son. But, my younger son is a different story. I got him hooked on Terry Pratchett, who now is far and away my younger son's favorite author. I can't get him to try Wodehouse though . . .
I've had really good luck recommending books to my kids (10 & 13). Mostly by recommending books I would've liked at their age. With the occasional book to stretch them, with the caveat that "you may not like this, but you just might, so give it 10 pages and I won't bug you."
So my oldest ended up liking one story out of "Dubliners," despite mostly being a sci-fi buff...
As to the list, I'd definitely take "Moby Dick" off. I'd also replace "Use of Weapons" with the "Game" one (I can't remember the title). Although maybe I'd put "Revelation Space" in as my sci-fi choice. Not that it's a better novel, but it's not as much of a downer, and it has lots of "Wow!" moments.
By the same token, I'd never, no how, no way, give a non-reader "Blood Meridian." I think of my brother's reaction -- "this guy can't even use quotation marks; how do you expect me to read this?"
Unfortunately, thinking of my brother reminds me that I've never managed to get him hooked on reading, and that makes my recommendations pretty suspect... (He's like a poster boy for the "men don't read" problem -- very smart, very intellectual, exactly the sort of person you would expect to devour novels, but he just doesn't).
Adrian,
Angela's Ashes (Frank McCourt) evoked a great deal of controversy, especially from Irish people. What is your opinion of the memoirs (book not movie) and/or the author?
Frankie
Nuts readers may be beyond our help.
John
Jack and Diane, right? I dont know I still think you can get worked up about stuff. You just realise that nothing much will change dont you? They've sold millions of copies of To Kill A Mockingbird and The Diary of Anne Frank but people still keep going to the Storm Front website dont they?
Seana
You have to find the rhythm of that book but once you do it all clicks. Also the Norton Critical Edition has many cool maps and a diagram of the ship.
Speedskater
Yeah Maus. I taught it over the years in high school. Its less effective when kids are forced to read it and do homework on it, but yes its a classic.
Gav
The Player of Games is the one you mean. Pretty effective story telling in that one.
I tried to read Revelation Space but the prose was so leaden I had to skip big chunks to get to the reveals. Not my cup of tea, but it won lots of awards for its ideas so it might get kids excited.
Thats pretty cool that they liked Dubliners. You better keep an eye on that one.
Trudy
I've done quite a few posts about Frank McCourt on the blog.
Here's one I did after he passed away.
Adrian,
Thanks for re-posting that Frank McCourt blog. What an honor that must have been to have him write that blurb. So very nice that it boosted your career as well. I absolutely loved Angela's Ashes and was hoping you weren't of the minority opinion that he was trashing Ireland or Limerick or Catholics etc.
I have not seen the movie but it is usually the case that the book is better.
I didn't discover him until after he had died but subsequently learned he lived in Roxbury CT.(as well as other places) Perhaps I ran into him at a store or library when I lived there and never knew it.
I will be listening to his follow-up 'Tis soon.
Re: Blood Meridian, I'll take my chances. If I don't care for a book after the first few chapters I will move on.
50 Grand is narrated by a woman. Will I like it as much as your other books? I am in love with GD's voice. Have you ever narrated a book?
Oh, I don't know. I think things could change for the better, just as they could change for the worse.
We had a funny moment at the discussion group, the Penny University, that I go to on Monday nights. We've had a two week litany of the world's woes, everyone telling each other about how the world is going to hell in a handbasket, backed by whatever source of info the person had at hand, which frankly was a lot. We were finishing up and one of the leaders said, my friend so and so has a new book he wants to come talk to us. It's on depression. The other leader pipes up, "Well, for the Penny, that will come as a lift." And everyone left smiling and joking with each other.
When you get older, you can handle only so much doom and gloom before you have to move on to other things,I guess.
Yeah, I believe you about Moby Dick. After seeing a wonderful play on it five or six years ago, I was really in the groove with it, but unfortunately it coincided with a time that I had to move, so I lost the thread. I'll get back to it. By the way, Moby Dick fans might want to know about Matt Kish's project of illustrating every page of Moby Dick.
Crime fiction helps drown out the doom and gloom happening in the real world; just open up a book and get lost in its pages. It's the best distraction.
On reading, when I was a teen-ager, I read what my parents suggested, but it wasn't said as required reading; mostly, I saw what they were reading and wanted to read those books -- and that's how I read mysteries then, by Rex Stout, Arthur Conan Doyle, Erle Stanley Gardner, and a few more.
And also Steinbeck, Dreiser, Maugham, Zola, etc.
However, the one book I was told not to read at 15? You guessed it. Out of curiosity as to what could be so bad, and out of teenage whatever, I got it the next day and had to read it. I agreed with the parent on this, but didn't own up to that opinion, kept it to myself.
Adrian, I wonder if young men (or young women, for that matter) would appreciate Harvey Pekar. I have this idea that one has to have experienced a bit of the world, or at least to be a sensitive and open observer of it, to get Pekar. of course, much depends on what one means by young. I was in my late twenties when I first read him.
One might phrase your question in different terms. What does one recommend to someone who's read Watchmen and Frank Miller?
==========================
Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://www.detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
Trudy
Never narrated. Not my thing at all. I love Ger too but he wouldnt have been appropriate for 50 G because its a female first person narrator.
Seana
Its a very interesting book, you just have to find the groove but when you do it really works. I've read my Norton critical edition from cover to cover twice now. Best purchase I ever got from a remainder bin.
Peter
Yes you're right, its too big of a jump from Watchmen to Pekar. I just dont know enough about graphic novels to suggest alternatives. Neil Gaiman perhaps? From Gaiman its an easy jump to his novels and then gothic lit, horror lit and mainstream Americana and British lit.
Adrian Tomino or Dan Clowes might speak more to them than Pekar.
I almost bought a copy of Moby Dick today, even though I have one, probably in storage. Thought I'd better finish Ian McEwan's Solar for my book group before tackling anything ambitious though.
I have mixed feelings about McEwan, but this one, though it's gotten tepid reviews, I'm liking quite a lot.
Oh, I should say to Trudy that I don't know about audio, but Fifty Grand is great once you get adjusted to the fact that you're in a whole new territory. I read it, but I think the audio reader is supposed to be quite good.
Seana
I dont know anything about McEwan either. I read one book Amsterdam I think it was called that I didnt like and I saw Atonement which I thought was really cheesy.
I didn't like Amsterdam either, mainly because it was very similar to one by Tim Parks called Europa that came out around the same time, but Parks' was funnier and I begrudged McEwan his Booker. I read Atonement, and liked the beginning but found the second half jarring. It was exactly the same with the movie, though I liked the war scene better than you did, but this was for personal reasons and maybe also because unbenknownst to me, I was just about to come down with the 24 hour flu at the time.
I read 'On Chesil Beach' by Ian McEwan. I was drawn to it beacuse I had visited Chesil and the Jurassic coastline and thought it was a really beautiful place. In his book he doesn't do enough to describe all the nice things, like the pretty peebles or the views. The story could have been set anywhere. I dont understand that. I want descriptions.
Frankie, it's odd that there isn't that much about Chesil Beach in the book, because they were so into that book when it came to the U.S. that they did a movie trailer for it, one of the first of these, I think. I never looked at it but just dug it up. It's...odd.
But that led me to this one, which is great. Even if you haven't read the book, which I haven't. Also, it has more pebbles.
I see what you mean about that first film. Bit odd. I could have done a better film for his book. I was photographing Chesil in the early morning. Waiting for the light. Watching a fisherman catch lots of fish.
I think basically, i couldnt relate to the sexual politics and fears about intimacy. Too sensitive for me. McEwan is a very good writer im sure. I will try Solar.
I am in my mid 30's and have been reading novels voraciously since I finished a Master's Degree and could chose what I wanted to read. I read a good bit in high school and college as well and started with mainstreamers like Crighton and Koontz. I rarely read anything like that anymore, but enjoyed many of the far-fetched ideas that Michael Crighton somehow made believable. I now love McKinty's stuff as well as authors like John Banville (aka Benjamin Black), Greg Rucka, Andrew Vachss and Charlie Huston. I find that I am now drawn to writers who are more literary than simply good story tellers. Any good suggestions that I should try? I especially like series. Thanks. Adrian, I just finished Falling Glass. Great work once again - truly enjoyed it. Thanks.
DJD
Well if you like Benjamin Black you might try Banville's other fictions.
What about Dennis Lehane, Ken Bruen, James Lee Burke?
Adrian and Seana, thanks for your suggestions. I'll try Lehane, Bruen and Burke. I've read everything penned under BB so far, and it's good but I like the Banville stuff better (like The Sea, The Infinities, and the Freddie Montgomery trilogy.) I also really enjoyed Kazuo Ishiguo's "Never Let Me Go". Any other suggestions of those offering a simalar writing style with a more literary feel (maybe there is a better description - but that's the best I can come up with on the spot) are greatly appreciated. Thanks again.
Ishiguro's Remains of the Day is one of the best books I've read.
DJD
Why dont you check out the list of 25 novels to read before you die blog I did last week? Just scroll down the screen a bit.
I'm thinking David Mitchell, who didn't quite make the list but might have with slightly different criteria, might fit.
Adrian, ever read Stephen White? Lived in Boulder, now Denver and his (series) stories take place here with locations and landmarks familiar to the locals. Boulder never saw so much murder and mayhem in real life!
Adrian, how about some Donald Westlake to get men reading? His stuff has adventure, action, violence without being at all voyeuristic, men confronting challenges against long odds, laughs in his comic novels and sometimes in his serious ones.
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Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://www.detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
Deliverance by James Dickey?
Seana
have you read Jacob De Zoet yet?
I really liked it.
Trudy
Read him, met him. Nice guy.
Peter
Yeah or Elmore Leonard.
Speedskater
Not many people read the book do they? Everyone's seen the film.
I thought the book was fantastic. I dont remember a lot about it except loving it - I guess it must have had a nice prose style because I'd seen the film a few times before reading the book and there were few surprises.
Adrian:
Sorry, but your response is about Remains of the Day or Deliverance? Both were made in to very well-known movies. I can't tell which of my posts you're responding to.
These are both, in my opinion, really good books, but Remains of the Day is one of my all-time favorites.
Speedskater
Deliverance. I saw the movie of Remains but I havent read the book.
I have the Mitchell novel, but haven't gotten to it yet. Hope to soon.
It was a long time ago, but I believe I read Deliverance before I saw the movie. It remains pretty vivid in my mind, and I don't think it was just because of the movie.
About Harvey Pekar, a woman relative of mine liked him very much.
The Remains of the Day is a wonderful, yet painful movie. It sounds like a good idea to read the book.
Check this out, from the Violent World of Parker Web about Slayground.
==========================
Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://www.detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
Peter
I dont know about Slayground but I like the other ideas. I hope they're not all James Bond novels though.
Adrian
I printed off your list of 25 novels to read before you die when you first blogged it and have begun making plans to expand my horizons with these writers. Thanks for your advice and input and for your great writing. I'm already looking forward to your next novel.
Yes, one hopes the list is something other than Slayground plus ninety-nine James Bond books. Slayground is an ingenious, but I like a couple of the other Parker novels better, should you decide to run around sticking books into men's hands one of these days.
==========================
Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://www.detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
A bit late but thanks for the recommendation Adrian, In Dubious Battle - John Steinbeck. Loved it. Found it in the bowels of a library that dare not speak its name. I may even have been the first borrower...
Best
David H
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